


There Are No Winners in Love

by ModernMutiny



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Behind the Scenes, But Tony loves him anyway, Light Angst, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform, Tragic Romance, Unrequited Love, adam jones is kind of a dick, unfortunately for everyone involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24210715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernMutiny/pseuds/ModernMutiny
Summary: Tony had never expected Adam fucking Jones to come whirling back into his life, trudging up memories and buried feelings and asking for favors that he hadn't earned, but that was just like Adam, wasn't it? Never content to be normal, to be simply ordinary. Everything had to be impossible with him, and if Tony was honest with himself, that was exactly why he loved him.
Kudos: 2





	There Are No Winners in Love

**Author's Note:**

> okay so I just watched Burnt a few hours ago for the first time and holy shit is it awesome. I didn't truly think there would be a fandom for it here, but then I saw there were five pages of fics about Tony and Adam and I just couldn't stay away. 
> 
> So basically by the end of the movie (or, honestly, by that one kissing scene) I couldn't help but think what the hell Tony had been thinking when Adam had first showed up, back from the dead after five years, with his first thought being to get the band back together and surpass his late mentor's michelin star achievement. The more you know about the story, looking back, the more of an asshole Adam probably seemed like. And so, this little drabble was born.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

He didn't believe Kaitlin when she'd told him. Tony Balerdi was many things, but a fool was never one of them. To hear that Adam Jones -- the man who was last seen pissing in a soup pot, high off his ass, before throwing a fit and disappearing into the night, never to be seen again -- was suddenly back from the dead, eating in his father's restaurant, asking for Tony by name? With that stupid old nickname, to boot? Ridiculous, is what it was. Probably just Michel, back from Paris to play a practical joke on him, or maybe Max was out of prison by now. Either of them taking the piss was more likely than the return of the disgraced prodigal son.

And then she had handed him the menu. _Little Tony_ , it read in Adam's unbearable chicken scratch. Then simply a room number, a room in his own hotel. How the man could even afford it with how much debt he was probably in to a hundred different cocaine dealers, Tony didn't know. Tony couldn't even fathom how the man had survived for the past five years in complete silence. He obviously hadn't been cooking, or he'd have been back to making headlines again, but to imagine an Adam without a chef's knife in his hand, spending all that time away from his one true passion -- well that was even more impossible than his sudden rise from the dead.

Tony couldn't help but wonder, though, how he'd turned out. Or, more importantly, if he was still the cocky asshole that Tony had loved all those years ago. Tony hoped like hell he wasn't, if not for his own sake then for Adam's. He was always on death's door those days, and to have him still stuck in those habits would do more than put a strain on their currently nonexistent relationship. It might just break Tony's heart.

Now, don't get him wrong. Tony had put all those feelings to bed years ago, back when the first rumors had been floating around about Adam lying face down in a ditch somewhere, dead as a doornail. That was certainly more plausible than him getting clean, by any means. But, no matter what may be, Tony still cared for Adam, or at least his memory of the chef. There was always more than a simple crush between them -- if there weren't, Tony would have left Jean-Luc's for greener pastures much earlier than he did, if only to avoid the awkwardness. They were brothers, practically. They had always supported one another, always been around to pick the other up when he was down. While Adam certainly needed more support, what with the drugs and alcohol and women and debts, but he had been around when Tony needed him, too. After a bad breakup, or the loss of his mother, or even just on a terrible day, Adam had always been there to lend an ear. He would then, of course, cuff Tony on the ear and make some bad joke, but they were never mean-spirited. He had always known that all Adam wanted was to make him smile.

All Adam ever wanted was to make people smile -- that was the reason he was a chef, whether he had realized it himself or not. He made food because it was the best way he knew to make people happy. It evolved into more than that, of course -- a competition, and addiction -- but that was how he had started it all. A scrawny kid, barely eighteen when he'd first joined Jean-Luc's kitchen, just wanting a father figure to grin at him and tell him he did a good job. His first days in the kitchen were always spent running around, making every other chef and all the waiters -- Tony especially -- taste his newest creation, just to see people's faces light up when he made something new and amazing, which was often.

That young, eager-spirited boy was the one Tony had first fallen in love with. He had loved Adam almost despite his addictions and impulsiveness, not because of them.

But not anymore, at any rate. Adam, in Tony's mind, was already dead. That's what had gotten him through these tough years, taking his father's place at the hotel despite the lack of appreciation he'd gotten. Because if Adam were alive and able to help, but didn't? Well, that was another story entirely.

And so Tony went to the room. There was nothing else he could do, was there? It had always been that way -- Adam called and Tony came running -- but this was for him, too. Tony needed to see him, see what had become of his best friend. Would he be better now? Clean cut and put together in a way he had never been for a moment of the eight years Tony had known him? Or would he still be disheveled and beaten down, struggling under the weight of his own shitty decisions? Tony wasn't sure which option he preferred.

He knew, from looking at the number, that Adam was staying in one of the nicer rooms, with a large ensuite bathroom and a kitchenette included. With what money, Tony didn't know. Even at the height of his talent, Adam had never had much saved up. Any extra cash that didn't go to food or rent went straight to booze and cocaine and sometimes strippers. Oftentimes it didn't even make it to rent, and he'd shown up on Tony's doorstep, tired and pleading to stay just for the night, passing out on the couch and leaving in the morning without a word, just a cold omelette waiting on the kitchen counter.

Adam had always used food to say the words he couldn't, the things he didn't mean. Tony thought, most times, that although the omelettes were always different and equally delicious, a thank you would have been nicer. But, to his heartache, Adam was never kind. Giving and supportive and wonderful, yes, but never, not once, was he kind or gentle or any of the things Tony was to him, or had wished Adam possessed. He was on fire, always, and in the same way fire was harsh and unforgiving, even at its best, so was Adam Jones. It simply wasn't in his nature.

Tony sighed as he got to the door, berating himself for even entertaining the thought. He should just walk away, leave Adam waiting for something that will never come just as Tony did all those years. As much as Adam could be vengeful, however, Tony never was. He just didn't have it in him to spite the man.

He knocked sharply once, twice, then waited on his heels. Some part of him still didn't expect Adam to be in there, still thought this was some elaborately cruel joke.

But then a voice shouted from the other side of the door. "It's your father's hotel, you can let yourself in."

It was unarguably Adam's voice, thick and almost gravelly from the years spent smoking his lungs away.

Tony opened the door, surveying the room as he walked in. It was a mess already, shirts and boxers everywhere. Then, around the corner, sitting on the unmade bed like Tony wasn't even there, was Adam.

He was still as pretty as he ever was, maybe even more-so now without the deep bags under his eyes and fingers that shook at the wrists. He was writing away in some pocketbook bound in soft, cheap leather that looked a breath's away from falling apart. His hair was longer now, falling into his face, and his arms were more defined where they bulged at the seams of his white t-shirt. The thing that cinched it, however, was his shoe-less feet, crossed over each other as his toes tapped gently at the air inside soft-looking navy socks. It seemed almost vulnerable, to catch Adam wearing simple jeans and a t-shirt, sitting on his bed with his socked toes dancing along to unheard music. Such a domestic image, it almost hurt Tony to be a part of it.

Tony knew, in that moment, that his feelings for Adam had never truly gone away.

He looked to the plates on the dresser instead, occupying his hands and eyes with anything that wasn't the man he clearly still loved, so gentle-looking and soft now around the edges.

"The boudin noir was cooked yesterday," Adam said, not moving from where he was pored over his tiny journal, "It was warmed up five hours under a heat lamp. A little crust had formed around it."

And there was the asshole Tony knew. It didn't quite shatter the image, but it did help bring Tony a little closer to reality. "Are you stoned or drunk?" He asked, toying with the edge of one of the dirty plates. He wondered idly how the man had made so much mess in such little time - Tony would have noticed immediately when he checked the day's reservations yesterday morning if there were and Adam Jones, so the man must have booked it within the last day. And yet he had already managed to make it look like the bedroom of a teenaged boy. "Or stoned and drunk, or something no one else but you has ever been?"

"You're serving seared tuna. What happened to your self-respect, Tony?"

No one but his father had called him Tony like that in a long time. He didn't have much interaction outside of work, so most of the time he was _sir_ or _maître d'_ or, rarely, _Mr. Balerdi_. The use of his first name felt almost unfairly intimate. He needed to put some distance between them before he did something he would regret. "This is coming from the man who once stole methadone off a dying sous chef."

Adam closed his book with a soft thumping noise, causing Tony to turn around. That was a mistake, clearly, since he was then pinned down by the glare of Adam's unceasingly intense blue eyes.

"You used to run the best restaurant in Paris."

How dare he use that against him, when it was entirely Adam's fault that it all fell apart? How dare he come back here, preying on Tony's old feelings for him, braying in such unseemly desperation after all the things he'd done? After all the things he'd made Tony do for him?

Tony felt the anger rising up hot and fast before he could stop it. "Yeah," He bit out, short and choppy as he glared at the book in Adam's hands, only barely holding himself back from shouting at the unfairness of it all. "And you destroyed it."

"Good. Anger." Adam's voice was so calm and soft that Tony couldn't help but look up, really looking into Adam's eyes for the first time since he came into the room. His face was so much softer now, older. He still held some of that boyish charm he'd wielded so well, but more of it now was a rogueish danger, belied only slightly by the gentle smile that sat comfortably on his face amid a layer of cleanly-kept stubble. "Hi, Tony."

It was almost offensive that he thought he could break Tony's defenses that easily, with a hello and a shy smile. It showed how much Adam thought of Tony, truly, that he would try to manipulate his feelings like that. Tony wasn't going to let him win, this time. Not after how it all ended. "You know, after you disappeared, Jean-Luc and I had to close the restaurant." As soon as he let himself start, he couldn't stop, all of his grievances over the past five years tumbling out. "There were rumors you had been stabbed to death in Amsterdam. There were drug dealers, and Jean-Luc's daughter claimed you made her pregnant."

He realized, as he said it, how petty the last statement had seemed, but it needed to be said. Adam needed to realize how he'd ruined Jean-Luc's last years of his life in more ways than one. How he'd ruined Tony's life.

"And now I'm back," Adam said, with all the bluster and cockiness he'd possessed back from his first night on the pass, "I'm going after my third star."

The nerve of him, to come back a mere year after Jean-Luc's death and try to usurp his legacy. "If you try to start a restaurant in Paris, there are at least a dozen people who will try to have you killed," Tony said instead. He wasn't quite sure if he hoped Adam would try it or not. At least, if his death were truly final this time, it would help put all these feelings to rest. And maybe, just maybe, getting his dumb ass killed would finally humble him, just a little.

"Oh no, no. Not Paris." Adam smirked, big and wide like he used to do back when he knew without a doubt he had a perfect dish on his hands, holding it out for Tony to taste with that bright blue flame in his eyes and lips. "Here, in London. I'm taking over your restaurant."

Tony couldn't bring himself to tell Adam to go fuck himself. Even after all these years, something in him railed at the thought of being as unkind to Adam as the man had been to him. He simply wasn't built that way, to be so crass to others. That was most of the reason he was a maître d' instead of a chef. He couldn't bear to tear others down to get them to build themselves back up. "Ah."

He stared Adam straight in the eyes, watching as the light there flickered and kept on burning.

"My advice to you, chef?" Tony offered, in his most sweetly acidic tone, "If you want to live a long life, eat your own tongue."

He shook his head, throwing Adam one last disappointed look. Adam, for his part, didn't seem deterred in the slightest.

Tony knew if he stayed much longer, no matter how insufferable the man was, he'd give in to Adam's demands. He would eventually, if Adam kept asking. It was a simple fact they both knew. That was the reason Adam had showed up in his hotel, after all. For now, though, in this moment, he could take his victory. The man still had a hold over his heart, but he would not hold over his head. Not this time. Tony could keep his composure, at least. Put up a good fight.

They both knew, though, that in the end Adam would win out. He always did, after all.

Tony shook his head and went for the door, escaping while he still could. "Good afternoon, sir." He said, as he shut the door behind him.

If only Adam had stayed dead. Maybe then he could finally get over him. Though, knowing Adam, he'd probably haunt Tony from the afterlife just for shits and giggles.

God, how he hated that incorrigible man. Not truly, though, not to his core. If he could hate Adam even half as much as he loved him, Tony thought, he would be in good shape. It was such a shame the man had to be alive again. Tony would have loved to not love him anymore. But, as it almost always was in Adam's case, Tony never truly got what he wanted, anyhow.


End file.
